Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a condition in which the heart exhibits a malfunction, namely a life-threatening abnormal rhythm, or arrhythmia. The most common arrhythmia is Ventricular Fibrillation (VF). When in VF, the heart's rhythm is so chaotic that the heart merely quivers, and is unable to pump blood to the body and brain. This chaotic rhythm is generally referred to as fibrillation.
Unfortunately, anyone can suffer SCA. SCA is unpredictable and it can happen at anytime and any place. It is estimated that approximately two hundred and twenty five thousand (225,000) deaths per year are attributable to SCA. This number of deaths attributable to SCA is greater than the number of deaths attributed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), breast cancer, lung cancer, or stroke.
A victim in SCA first loses his or her pulse, then consciousness, and finally the ability to breath. These events happen in a matter of seconds. An effective treatment for SCA is to deliver an electrical shock using a device called a defibrillator (i.e., to defibrillate the heart). Voltage stored by the defibrillator is applied by means of electrodes or paddles place on the victim's body, such as the victim's chest, resulting in an electrical current flow through the heart. The brief pulse of electrical current is provided to halt the fibrillation, giving the heart a chance to start beating with a normal rhythm. This delivering of the electrical shock, which is intended to return the heart to normal rhythm, is called defibrillation.
Survival rates for SCA are the highest when defibrillation is conducted within the first few minutes of an arrhythmia, and the person has the best chance of survival if the defibrillation shock is given within the first three (3) minutes of the person's collapse. One study has shown that the chances of resuscitating an individual suffering SCA are reduced by about seven percent (7%) to about ten percent (10%) with each minute that lapses between the SCA and application of the defibrillation shock. Therefore, rate of survival for SCA victims average less than two percent (2%) when defibrillation is delayed ten (10) minutes or more.
One medical device that has been developed to reduce the time that lapses between the SCA and defibrillation is a defibrillator. There are many types of defibrillators, spanning a spectrum from manually operated defibrillators, which are generally used by medical personnel, to automated devices. Two types of such devices, an Automatic External Defibrillator and an Automated External Defibrillator, are known as by the acronym AED. Typically an AED is a small, portable device that analyzes the heart's rhythm and prompts a user to deliver a defibrillation shock, and/or delivers a defibrillation shock without user interaction, if it determines the desirability for such a shock. Once the AED is activated, it can guide the user through each step of the defibrillation process by providing voice and/or visual prompts.
AEDs are generally designed for use by a “first responder,” who would be the first person to typically arrive on the scene of a medical emergency. A first responder can be an emergency medical services worker, a firefighter or a police officer, or it can be a layperson with minimal or no AED training. Time to defibrillation can be reduced if an AED is “on-site” and can be quickly brought to the victim. This is one of the reasons that SCA survival rates are significantly improved in communities/organizations having AEDs readily available, accessible and portable.
AED availability, accessibility and portability elevate the importance of power management. Generally, electrical power is provided to the AED by one or more cells that are configured to store an electrical charge and furnish an electrical current (i.e., a battery). This electrical charge and current is used for the defibrillation shock, which typically consumes a substantial amount of electrical charge, and the electrical charge and current is used for other operational activities of the AED, such as patient diagnosis and equipment diagnosis. Therefore, the electrical charge of the AED battery needs to be replenished or a replacement battery needs to be provided for further operations.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system that provides electrical charge and current for operational activities of a defibrillator such as an AED, and/or replenishes the defibrillator battery if such an electrical charge storage device exists. In addition, it is desirable to provide a corresponding method for storing the defibrillator. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.